Generate a nice travel plan from your GPS route in MRA

Generate Travel Plan

Info

MyRoute-App (MRA) is my prefered tool to create routes for my trips. It can generate GPS files for any device and if you use the Gold version you can also use the maps from all big GPS manufacures to check your route against (driving times can differ between the maps you are using). The only thing I was missing is a 1 or 2 pager with all important information to read at the start of the day (POI's, gasstations etc). The tool on this page solved this problem by transforming your route to a nice travelplan and also generates a file with POI's you can import on your navigation device.

Read my blog on creating Multi-day routes if you want learn more about my way of working.

Generating Travel Plan

By copying the MRA route ID, the content of an .itn file or the the source code of a route in MyRouteApp to the form below, you can generate a nice travelplan, including a POI file (.ov2) for your route.

Input
Input options
  • MRA Route ID (public)
  • Content of an .itn route file
  • MRA sourcecode copy
     
(scroll down for help)
Options



Other tools
ITN splitter
Splits a .itn files based tagged PTS routpoints (in your multi-day route).
Very usefull to split a MRA route (download route as .itn, split route, upload .itn files to MRA.

Adding more information to your Travel Plan

By adding some 'codes' to your routepoints in MRA, the tool can even extract more infomation for your travel plan.

Prefixes (start a routeppoint with this coding)
  • POI: Point Of Interest
  • PTS: Place To Stay Overnight stay
  • GAS: Gas station (very usefull in remote area's, like the Scottish Highlands) Gas Station
  • FER: Ferry Crossing (Add this code to the point where the ferry starts. Also add a point at the end of the Ferry trip to see time needed to cross) Ferry Crossing
  • ALT: Alternatieve route, plus optional the extra time needed for this extra route between parentheses: (1:00h) Start of an alternative route

Note: It's not possible to give a routpoint two main tags (like GAS and PTS). Simply solve this by adding two routepoints to the map.

Skip one or more routepoints
It's always good to have some 'escapes' in your route, in case of bad weather for example. This is the only thing that cannot be calculated automatically in MRA, but, once the information is saved in the a routepoint, the routepoints that have to be skipped can be calculated.
To determine the time that can be saved, write down the total trip time, delete the 1 (or more) routepoints and calculate the time saved based in the new total trip time (don't forget to fix te route again with those just deleted routpoints). Now add this time betweem brackets at the end of the first routepoint that can be skipped: [1:00] or if 3 routepoints need to be skipped: [3p 1:25] Shorten a route by skipping routepoints

Other relevant 'tags'
Add the following tags between brackets to the routepount (eg '(Lunch)') and the routpoint will be recognized as important (and also marked as POI):
  • Koffie, Coffee, Break Break/Coffee
  • Dinner, Lunch Restaurant
  • Supermarkt, Supermarket Supermarket
Activity
Time of an activity at a routpoint, for instande a hike or a museum. Put the expected time of the activity beteen parentheses (2:30h) at the end of the routepoint, including an 'h'. Duration activity

Example route:
Route in MRA (id 3025738)
Demo_route.itn
Example output:
Travel Plan (normal)
Travel Plan (compact incl. map)
Travel Plan (Excel)
POI file (.ov2)


Any ideas? feedback is always welcome!

Example coding

Name of routepoint Explanation
POI Castle Lunenburg Tags the routepoint as a Point of Interest
POI Castle Lunenburg (1:30h) Tags the routepoint as a Point of Interest and shows a activity time of 1:30 hours
PTS Arnhem Tags the routepoint as a place to stay overnight. It calculates automatically the travel times and milage between the place to stay.
GAS Gasstation Tags the routepoint as a gas station. It calculates automatically the travel times and milage between Gas stations.
POI De Hoge Veluwe National Park (1:30h) [0:30] Tags the routepoint as a Point of Interest (National Park) with an activity of 0:30 hours. If this routpoint is skipped, 30 minutes of travel time will be saved.
POI De Hoge Veluwe National Park (1:30h) [3p 0:30] Same as above, with the difference that 3 routpoints need to be skipped to save the 30 minutes of travel time.
ALT Castlepoint loop (2:45h) Starting point of an alternative route (different route/track file), with a duration of 2:45 hours extra.
Cafe the Dikeview (Lunch) Cafe marked as POI to have lunch.
Kalverstraat 28, Amsterdam (Supermarket) Address of a supermarket marked as POI.

Differences in input and output

  MRA Route ID .itn file (content) MRA sourcecode copy
Time/distance calculation OpenStreetMaps OpenStreetMaps Map selected for the route in MRA
(times can differ quite a lot between maps)
Generate POI files (.ov2) Yes Yes No
Including a map Yes (experimental) No No
Instructions
  • Open your route in MRA
  • Get/copy the route ID from the url: www.myrouteapp.com/ route/open/3025738
  • Paste the MRA route ID in the input field
Warning: Make sure you have set the map to 'public'!
  • Download your route in .itn format in MRA (or any other route planning tool)
  • Open the .itn file in any text editor
  • Copy and paste the content into the input field
Coming soon: .itn file upload
  • Open your route in MRA
  • Rightclick the mouse on a random routepoint on the left and select 'inspect' in the dropdown menu
  • Rightclick the mouse on '<div id="waypointscontainer">' and select 'Copy' -> 'Copy Element' in the dropdown menu
  • Paste the html code in the field below
Example input 
3025738
 
528116|5212233|Shop|4|
526895|5211677|Routepoint 1|0|
...
521255|5215677|Routepoint 45|0|
526215|5210686|POI Museum|2|
 
<div id="waypointscontainer">
  <div id="error-progress">
    ...
  </div>
</div>

Usage on your Navigation Device

  .itn based .gpx based
Device TomTom Rider TomTom Rider 40 (and up), Garmin
Preparation
  • Download .itn file from MRA (or any other tool)
  • Upload it to you navigation system
  • Download your Travel plan and print it or put it on your phone
  • Download .gpx file from MRA (or any other tool)
  • Download the POI file from this tool (.ov2)
  • Upload both to you navigation system
  • Download your Travel plan and print it or put it on your phone
During navigating The route points on screen of your navigation device correspond with the numbers on your travel plan. Especially skipping points to cut off was never as easy with your travel plan ;-) The disadvantage of .gpx is that you lose track on where you are. By using the POI's however you have best of both worlds! The POI's on screen are now the trigger for a pause, a cut-off or something else you defined.


Any ideas? feedback is always welcome!